Newa held a 2-day(April 12-13) experience sharing workshop on peace building and conflict resolution with members of FemWise-Africa
NEWA conducted a two day experience sharing workshop on peace building and conflict resolution. The workshop is a continuation of a three-day training in January 2022. Members of FemWise-Africa joined the participants to share their experiences in peace building, mediation, conflict resolution.
Day 1 – April 12, 2014
The sessions of the first day focused on engaging the participants to be ambassadors of peace and unite for a shared vision as women.
The first day also included a screening of the ‘Pray the Devil Back to Hell’, and award winning documentary that chronicles social unrest in the West African Republic of Liberia, where civil war had torn the nation apart and left hundreds of thousands dead or displaced. The film reconstructs the way this tragedy galvanized a coalition of Christian and Muslim women to rise up and, through nonviolent tactics, put pressure on their government to pursue peace talks. It also follows their grassroots moment as it leads to democratic elections and Liberia’s first female president.
Following the presentations and screening, a discussion session took place on what kind of strategy, networking, advocacy groups, women’s movements, and actions are needed for the realization of the women peace builders network in a specific local context.
Day 2 – April 13, 2014
In the Second day of the workshop the participants learned of other countries’ experiences regarding the role of women in the National Dialogue process. The sessions also covered the role of women in state structure in supporting network of women peace builders and also bringing women’s perspective from informal structure to formal platform; Women as peace builders: what challenges they face and how they can overcome the challenge and the inter linkage between the 3 tracks in mediation.
Furthermore, the participants engaged in a vision board exercise to envision a women peace builders network in Ethiopia with practical questions such as what the network should look like, what its priorities are, what it should accomplish and how it should go about in achieving its objectives. In line with this, the participants conducted a SWOT Analysis for the establishment of the Ethiopian Women Peace Builders Network and discussed on the Way forward to initiate formation of women peace builders network in Ethiopia
